Ten Years of Blogging

Things can change substantially in 10 years. Amazingly enough, I am still blogging and somehow, after over 4,800 posts, here we are.

It all started as a bit of a lark. I missed the heyday of this ephemeral genre, which was really around the time of the 2004 presidential election. That was the time when bloggers like the guys at PowerLine could actually lead the charge to stop the corruption of the mainstream media. I got in the game at least a year too late to join in that fun. Can't say that I missed it, though.

When I set up the blog, I was in the middle of my lunch hour at Bank of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. That same lunch hour, two of my colleagues also started blogs. Those blogs are probably still out there someplace, in the vast expanse of the World Wide Web, but they went moribund a long time ago. I never would have guessed that this blog would still exist a decade later.

At the time, my family faced a dilemma. My job was moving to Portland, Oregon, and I had to decide whether I wanted to go there, or remain in the Twin Cities and find something different. As it happened, I decided to stay here and blogging became a way to cope with what became a frustrating job search.

For the first 18 to 24 months of this enterprise, I did not seek an audience. As I learned more about blogging, I decided that I could get into the game and reach a wider audience. I joined the MOB (Minnesota Organization of Bloggers, now also moribund) and did reach a wider audience, but I never pursued one with a concerted effort. Although I have had some posts that had over a thousand page views, the audience for this feature has rarely gone much beyond a few hundred readers. Many of my friends, and nearly all of my coworkers, are not even aware that I have a blog. In some respects, this is a secret enterprise that is hiding in plain sight. And that's okay.

The point of blogging, as I have learned, isn't necessarily to make a name for myself, or to become a recognized authority in politics, or sports, or music, or any of the other topics we have covered here over the past 10 years. It sure the heck isn't to make money. The point of this enterprise, the one thing that has really mattered the most, is that it has led to some wonderful friendships that would not have been possible otherwise. I have met great people and had remarkable experiences.

The example I used, very early on, was to compare blogging to dropping a penny into a well. The idea is to listen for a splash. We've dropped a lot of pennies over the years. We've also heard more than a few splashes. As the old song says, you don't miss your water until the well runs dry. I think we have a good well here. Thank you all for drawing from it.

The boys

Four well-meaning Catholic boys

I went to Wausau yesterday to see my three best buddies from childhood. The faces you see on the picture are Pat O'Connell, John Gosling, yours truly and Mark Miller. I've known these guys for 40 years or more, which is hard to believe, but the calendar says 2015, so it's true.

We are all graduates of St. Mary's School (1977) and Xavier High School (1981), four Catholic boys from middle-class families in a prosperous town. We had our struggles growing up, but in general it was a pretty good circumstance to come of age in Appleton, Wisconsin, in the 1970s. You don't always realize your good fortune when you are in the middle of it, but we had it pretty good.

We don't get to see each other as much as we'd like, since we all live in different places, but we all are greatly blessed in our own ways -- all four of us have been happily married to our respective spouses for 25 years apiece, give or take a year. All of us have two children apiece, who are all coming along nicely. We have our health, for the most part, and our wits about us.

I spend a lot of time writing about misfortune, perfidy and stupidity. There's plenty of that going around. We need to be thankful for what we have. And I am greatly blessed and especially thankful that these gentlemen are my friends.